Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(8)
Jutras called in his assistant and gave him his instructions. When they were alone once more, the director got up to see his visitor out.
“You know I’m in your debt. Thanks to the new capital you raised, we’ve doubled the size of our facilities. Just to set up the new centrifuge chains, we had to build and hire more people than the city of Quebec had seen anybody do in over a century. And then there were the new vessels to produce uranium oxide, the vats for mixing the zirconium alloy of the cladding, the—”
“I expected no less. I just hope the final product is up to snuff.”
“The enrichment is above the minimum you requested,” Jutras asserted, visibly irked. “We took advantage of the existing enrichment of the metal recovered in Ontario to go faster, but the centrifuges still had to spin all winter to process the Saskatchewan ores. I can guarantee you that we followed your specifications for the moulds to the nearest tenth of a millimetre. Each tube contains the required number of pellets. Yes, the quality is what you asked for, and you can have my word for it… I hope it won’t be the last order of the kind.”
“Labour is less expensive here than in France,” Darrick said, repeating the lie he had already used on the shareholders in Paris. “As long as we get the same price for our electricity, our profit margins will fatten like ducks before the slaughter.”
Jutras nodded, mollified.
“Don’t you wish to see our facilities?”
“That won’t be necessary. Sea air has left me with quite an appetite. I’m heading back to my inn for a real meal. The rods will be…”
“In custom-made trunks lined with lead. The radioactivity is essentially undetectable from the outside.”
“That’s great. I wouldn’t want to worry the captain of the Express de Rouen. She’s a fine woman, but there are still people who are scared of anything nuclear.”
They laughed, in complete agreement at last.
? ?
Twenty years later, Darrick still remembered the large house abutting the enclosure of the wind farm on the Plains of Abraham. It was a link to his childhood. Other places he had known in his youth still stood, no doubt, but the old house was the only one he associated with happy memories.
He was in such a hurry to see it again that he only stopped once on his way, by the foot of a streetlight set up by the Ancients. A black and stinking rain was falling. The drops darkening the pavement near the base stoked his hate anew, but he managed to stifle it again before he reached the house.
While memory might be more powerful than time itself, time was mightier than flesh and houses. The three-storey stone building, roofed with slate from Montmorency, bore its share of new scars. And though the ground floor was still occupied by a bicycle rental shop, the faces of the people in charge were unfamiliar. The colour of the shutters was different, too. The steps of the staircase running up the outside of the house sagged a bit more than he remembered, as well.
The passage of time had been even harsher on Réjean Lacombe. The former chancellor of the Court of St. Macaire’s Dome still boasted a full head of hair: he’d been famous for his lion’s mane, but it had gone white. His sunken cheeks and deep wrinkles testified to the years gone by. For a second, Darrick was embarrassed by his still-youthful frame, its powerful muscles and as yet unblemished skin… For a second. Only the weak believed strength was shameful. Exile had taught that lesson to Darrick.
The old man seemed surprised to see his former pupil. “You’ve returned!”
Lacombe didn’t rise to greet him, but Darrick expected it. In his youth, Lacombe had been captured by a tribe of Newfs when he had ventured west of Lake Superior. The tribals had crossed the Saskatchewan steppes to sell him to the highest bidder in the slave markets of Kananaskis.
And to make sure he wouldn’t get away, they had cut open the soles of his feet and forced him to walk on tiptoe across the grasslands, hands tied to the back of a horse-drawn cart. Walking had kept either cross-shaped gash from closing and the open wounds would have prevented him from getting very far if he had tried to escape.
He had been ransomed by the Quebec consul in Kananaskis, but Lacombe had been lamed for life. He could still walk if he needed to, but he avoided it whenever he had the chance. As chancellor, he had rarely been required to stand for anyone. Darrick glowered, unhappy with his old friend’s tone.
“You sound like you regret it.”
“You didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“I let as few people know as possible. Just Carolin and Naoufal.”
Darrick pointed to the young men with him. One was standing guard in the vestibule visible through the door. The other was in the living room with them, keeping a lookout by the window.
“Why them?”
“They’ve been my main contacts here in Quebec, and I needed them to get things ready for my return. If they had stopped receiving my messages, they would have been worried for me.”
“Wasn’t there a radio aboard the ship you sailed on? Couldn’t you have called?”
“Access to the radio was strictly controlled. And bringing all the apparatus of a short-wave radio set onboard the Expressde Rouen would have looked suspicious. Ironbearers aren’t known as radio fans…”
“Since you are here, I assume you evaded our gallant border police.”
“Fortunately for me, an outboard is much faster than a shallop. By now, my description is no doubt being typed up for every police unit on the island. Too late.”